


Manning

by redtailedhawk90



Series: There Is Nothing To Blame On The Mirror [2]
Category: The Room Where It Happened (Podcast)
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtailedhawk90/pseuds/redtailedhawk90
Summary: \ ˈma-niŋ\NounThe act of acclimating a bird of prey to living and working with you.Just another day of bodyguard work for Tseer.





	Manning

Tseer sat cross-legged on a chair just outside Wyatt’s lab, watching the bustle of the office around him with disinterest.  After the excitement of the Keeper convocation, he had harbored some hope that his days would be filled with action, but it turned out that being the bodyguard of one of the CEOs of the Ki-Rin Collective wasn’t all that much different from any other guard duty.  Mostly, it involved long hours sitting or standing outside a room, people-watching. He wouldn’t say he was  _ disappointed _ , exactly, but--look, even though he and his friends had found out that Wyatt didn’t have a hit out on him, and that the assassin had been after  _ Tseer _ , not Wyatt, as retaliation for breaking into Jimmy the Fish’s warehouse, Tseer had thought that maybe things would be less, well,  _ boring _ .

It was probably concerning that Tseer thought nothing of keeping such information a secret from his boss.  Although, with the lack of concern Wyatt had shown about any further assassination attempts, it was also possible that he already knew who the intended target had been.  Ki-Rin did have an extensive network of spies, and the information hadn’t been particularly hard to obtain--Seshmir had simply asked one of his contacts about it. Whatever the case, there did not seem to be any exciting attempts on either of their lives in the near future.

Maybe tomorrow he would bring a book.

The door behind Tseer opened, and he jumped to his feet.  Wyatt was leaning through the narrow opening, scanning the room.  Finally, he looked over at Tseer.

“Yeah, you’ll do.  Come here,” he said, and disappeared back into his lab.  Tseer shrugged, and followed.

Wyatt’s lab was not a neat place.  Scrap metal and tools were strewn about every available surface, some holding open rolls of parchment on which he had scribbled notes or diagrams.  There was a tang of ozone in the air that even Tseer could smell. Next to one of the tables was the golem: Wyatt’s pet project. It looked to Tseer like a suit of armor made of thick steel.  Wyatt had pulled off the breastplate, and the golem’s insides had spilled out, a mess of gears and wires. At the center, a red stone gleamed in the light.

Wyatt, already elbow-deep in the golem’s chest cavity, removed an arm to motion vaguely to a spot next to him.  Tseer moved a chair with a stack of papers on it to stand where indicated.

“Is there something you needed help with, sir?” Tseer asked.  

“Yes,” said Wyatt, his brow furrowed in concentration as he continued to dig through the golem.  “I need to realign the geo-oscillator before I can prepare the heart for neurogenesis.”

Tseer blinked.  “Those words don’t actually mean anything,” he said before he could stop himself.

“Listen, I don’t need you to understand it,” said Wyatt, sounding strained, “You just need to--aha!”  He waved his free hand and grabbed Tseer’s wrist. Tseer’s wings fluttered as he was pulled forward, between Wyatt and the golem.  “Here, I need you to grab the box that I am holding.”

Tseer looked at where Wyatt’s hand disappeared into the tangled mass, then back over his shoulder at Wyatt, who raised his eyebrows expectantly.  Tseer could feel the heat radiating off of him, and was more than a little uncomfortable at how  _ close _ he was.  “Right,” he said, and he gently placed his left talon along Wyatt’s arm and followed it into the golem where his hand gripped a small box.  Wyatt released it as soon as he felt Tseer grab it, and pulled his hand out. 

“Okay, now do you feel the connection on the side?” asked Wyatt, stepping back.  Tseer nodded, carefully running the scaled pad of his thumb around where a bundle of wires had come loose from an opening in the side of the box.  The claws on his hands were smaller than those on his feet, but sharper, so he had to take extra care to avoid cutting anything on accident. 

“Hold those wires in the connection while I perform the spell to get the circuit running again,” Wyatt continued.  Tseer fumbled for a minute as he struggled to get the wires lined up one handed and without being able to see what he was doing.  It was exceptionally frustrating, and embarrassing, since they fell out of the opening every time he moved his hand. He was hyper aware of Wyatt standing next to him, watching him.  Finally, he managed to pinch them in place.

“I’ve got it,” he said, looking over at Wyatt. “Now what?”

“Just hold it there while I do my part,” said Wyatt, flipping open a small leather-bound book and flattening it on top of a nearby stack of steel plates.  Tseer felt the familiar hum of magic in the air as Wyatt began to weave the spell, his hands moving in complicated patterns. As much as Tseer disliked the confounding technicality of magic, it certainly was pretty to look at.  Having grown up on a working farm, Tseer had very little patience for the flavor of high brow aesthetic that Wyatt cultivated, but watching him cast, it was like watching a photograph become a living scene. He didn’t do magic like Orron, who wielded spells much like he wielded his hammer--bluntly, and with great force.  It was more like watching a glass blower or a potter, molding and forming raw material into a useful form.

When Tseer’s teacher had begun to teach him how to channel his ki, she had described it as a river inside of him.  It was too powerful to divert or bend to his will, she had said, but if he built a water wheel, he could transform its energy into something else.  He saw nothing of that in Wyatt’s magic. It wasn’t some force of nature he had little control over, nor was it even a tool. It was an extension of his being.

Just as Tseer’s talon was beginning to cramp from holding position, a current of energy pulsed outward from the box, standing all of Tseer’s feathers on end as it traveled through him, and was matched by a pulse of glowing red from the ruby heart of the golem.  Tseer waited until Wyatt signaled that he could release his grip, then carefully extricated himself. Wyatt nudged him aside and ran his hands across the ruby, out along the wires that connected it to the golem. Finally, he seemed satisfied and turned back to face Tseer.

“It worked,” Wyatt said.  “Thank you, Tseer.” He smiled, and Tseer felt a peculiar flutter in his chest.

“Uh, yeah,” he stammered.  “Anytime. Is there anything else I can do for you?”  But Wyatt had already turned away, engrossed in his notes.  He waved a hand in dismissal. Tseer suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.  “All right. I’ll be outside, then.”

Tseer carefully picked his way out of the lab, being sure to shut the door softly behind himself as he left.  He resumed his customary seat, rubbing his talons together to rid himself of the frisson of residual magic. The tingling remained, as did a slight queasiness, as if he had swallowed something still alive.  He considered going back and asking Wyatt if he was supposed to expect any lasting side-effects, and then immediately rejected the idea. It was probably nothing. He rubbed his talons again, and the sense-memory of tracing the length of Wyatt’s arm rose, unbidden, in his mind.  His chest fluttered again.

_ Oh. _

“Fuck.”


End file.
